Wallace Chin, age 11., of San Francisco, Calif., for his question:

How does the koala live in Australia?

The cuddly koalas in the San Francisco zoo take life easy, very easy. There they live like the most pampered darlings in the world. In their native Australia, of course, koalas live in the wild. Here too they take life easy, very easy. For these fat, furry little fellows are among the laziest animals in the world.

Not so long ago, their laziness was almost their undoing. The early settlers of Australia fell in love with their woolly, ash grey coats. In the year 1927 alone, more than two million of the pretty darlings were slaughtered to make fur coats, collars and even carriage rugs. It was very easy, much too easy, to catch the sleepy little characters. Now they are protected by law and no one dares to steal their silky fur coats.

Sad to say, their numbers have shrunk and today we find koalas only in a few areas from Queensland to Victoria. Here and there we find a family group of them in a grove of eucalyptus or blue gum trees. As a rule, a koala spends his entire life in the grove in which he was born. He spends his time high in the leafy branches dining on the tenderest of the leaves. Between meals he sleeps and dozes. He often sleeps hanging upside down.

Though we often call him a koala bear, the little fellow is not related to Bruin. He is a marsupial, or pouched animal. Fully grown, he may be two feet long and tip the scales at 30 pounds. He has a big black nose and a pair of sleepy button black eyes. His big ears are fluffy and floppy and he always wears a puzzled expression on his face.

Junior, like the baby porcupine, is    always an only child.  At birth he is no wider than a pencil and only one inch long. He is placed at once into Mammas fur lined pouch, where he spends the first three to six months of his life without so much as a peek at the outside world.

At last the young koala is ready to make his debut. He makes the very daring ,journey up onto Mammals back. There he clings with his four feet firmly grasping her thick, woolly fur. He gazes dreamily at the world. He learns to nibble a few leaves as Mamma does. He dozes when she dozes. Months go by and Junior still clings to Mammats furry back. He grows almost as big as she. At the age of one year we still find him riding around on Macrmia's back.

Koalas are very gentle, placid characters and very loving with each other. The mothers are happy to feed their neighbors babies and they never scrap or quarrel. Once in a while, ho never, a sleepy Papa Koala will become annoyed when a fat youngster climbs up onto his back. When captured, the koala is just as loving t his human foster parents.  Needless to say, he becomes an ideal pet.